With less time and very little exposure to the studio it can be a challenge for architecture students. The studio culture is an important part of the design process, more than we give it credit for. It can be a challenge to find new ideas and ways of approaching your design work when you don’t have as much access to workshop spaces where it was much easier to transition between different mediums and thought processes. But this shouldn’t stop you from experimenting at all. Don’t be convinced that inspiration is something you look for because you don’t, but when you embark on the challenge of completing a task without having any clue on how to approach it, and if you truly want to you’ll find a way to do it, every time. It is easy to fall into the trap of seeing what others are doing and then comparing yourself, that is not what collaboration is. When you decide to look for solutions in the work of others within your own is when you will realise just how vital of a design process it is.
With so many resources at your disposal (like the phone you are probably gazing at this article from) you’ll realise that you haven’t been as attentive to your surroundings for the solutions you may be seeking as you might have thought. So in light of making the most of what you already have here are some unconventional places to look for inspiration when you want to be excited by the process as you would be for the outcome.
Google image search for a keyword of your choosing
Architecture or rather the design process of creating a narrative in your portfolio is visual. You want the work you produce to represent a key visual. This isn’t google search examples, although you could do that that isn’t what I mean. When you associate three keywords to a specific drawing or process you’ll create a structure that will help you understand the process of your own project, this becomes useful to have especially during presentations. You’ll be able to get an idea or how things have been presented in the past and the possibility to combine various visual elements into something that represents your ideas is one of many outcomes you can get. This isn’t unconventional per se but it is a place to start exploring beyond architectural representations.
Check your feed - on all your social media platforms
What images appeal to you most? Is it the dark, almost muted, and what seems minimalist in colour or is it the quirkiness of abstract viewpoints and visuals that grab your attention the most? Looking at how something is presented to you, whether it is a video, animation or work of art, what excites you about it that you don’t typically find in architecture drawings. Observing the process of film and animation you begin to realise that the moving world can speak to you in so many more ways than still visuals can. But how can this be translated? Look at some behind the scenes or time-lapses of some of your favourite interactions on your phone. All it takes is for a change of perspective - a contrast of inside and out, of fast and slow, of dark and light. Your senses are really important here. Although you see architecture experimenting with the processes of digital mediums can allow you to explore another dimension of architecture that appeals to your other senses, and who knows you might find yourself experimenting in ways that truly capture a different human experience
Look out your window - what is every day really like
The connotation around inspiration is that it has to be something that has to have a wow factor and sometimes that doesn’t have to be the case. Seeing how people interact with stoplights, crossing and pedestrian pathways, bumps and roadblocks is an adventure if you choose to see it that way. A sprinkle of reality will let you know just people, of various abilities and interactions process the built environment around you. Although this might not give you some new ideas on how to present your drawings it will only add to your understanding of how we as humans navigate around our spaces. There are so many books that study this phenomenon (namely Jan Gehl’s Life between buildings - which is a great book to read) and it's definitely worth observing if you have access to a decent window during your breaks between tutorials and your computer screen.
Look at your current space - what would you do differently and what do you do all the time
Like so many, our homes have become a blend between work and life in ways that we may not be used to. If your project involves elements of residential spaces it is worth analysing your own living spaces. Looking at what gravitates you to a particular spot in your home and the objects that live there too is one of many ways to observe your own behaviour in a way that allows you to see your space differently. You can get carried away with simply moving from desk/ workspace to bed in a routine that can become almost automatic you start to realise the objects or rather the display of objects within your space help define its function or it blurs it completely giving you a dose of what real living spaces are, and they don’t always look like the ones you find on Pinterest or covers of magazines. It doesn’t even have to be limited by the workspace, the way you use the kitchen for instance, what you do in these spaces, what you have in these spaces. These spaces contain within themselves utensils that are often used in automated scenarios of everyday life.
There are so many ways to bring a bit more thought to your designs and the design processes involved in the making of your work. Not being in a space to experiment isn’t an excuse not to explore what you already have. Doing something different will allow you to see things differently. Although you might not be doing the work you thought was ‘architectural’, looking at the process that is part of other disciplines and expertise, of the imagined and existing spaces that surround your thoughts, screens and books is a great place to start seeing alternatives to the design process that you have become familiar to being artistic or architectural. Reality or the lack thereof is part of your human experience might as well use it make your designs more connected to what it is like to be a human in the 21st century